[Neil Jones]

Yeah but the point is that "failing because they bid too much", wouldn't have applied if they'd bid less. That's not the same as being excluded on the grounds of being of lesser quality to the competitor which was the implication of the BBC's comment, and which belied a misunderstanding of the rules - if a company passed the quality threshold and bid the most then they won. None of the incumbents failed on programme quality - the ones that did fail, did so on business plan, a bad example of which can't be described as offering "nothing special".

What is a "special" business plan anyway? We're going to make ten gazillion pounds an hour? We're going to give all our money to starving kittens?

The whole point of the blind auction was simply to effectively raffle them off for a whole wodge of cash. The previous system where applicants needed to show good programming ideas and fine financial controls went out of the window.

In other words... what you did before (for the incumbent) isn't the only factor. If you say you can cough up £45m a year for the next 10 years you'd better able to and you'd better be able to prove it as well. It was all (primarily) about the money in the first instance (as I say the "quality" was added later), if and if there was a doubt that you couldn't fork out £450m over the life of the deal, then adios.

Its up for debate whether had TSW bidded closer to £10m they'd have won, but at the end of the day you have to make decisions based on you know and believe at the time. If some other information comes to light that it would have been nice to know at the time to influence that decision, that's unfortunate, but sucks to be you. In the event TSW were very bitter about the whole saga and felt very hard done by (and took it to court and the House of Lords), but whether the outcome would have changed is debatable.

As for "special" business plan... well the whole point of any business is to make money. Simple as. Otherwise you don't have a business, you have a charity.